If you walked into a cursed house and vengeful
spirits started preying upon you, what would you do? In this How to Beat video, we’ll follow
the characters, see if we can make better decisions, and ultimately attempt to beat
the CURSED ONRYO in, THE GRUDGE. If you think you have a better way to beat
the ONRYO, let me know in the comments! If you like these how to beat videos, consider
subscribing. Before we start following the characters,
we’re warned by some dark exposition about the Ju-On curse. That, when someone dies in the grip of a powerful
rage... A curse is born. The curse gathers in that place of death,
and those who encounter it will be consumed by its fury. It’s a great bedtime story for your children. What about the victims of the onryo. They are all suffering immensely, and dying
in the grip of the onryo’s powerful rage. Wouldn’t this in effect, cause the spread
of the Ju-On grudge curse like a virus. It would be an unstoppable pandemic that would
cause the human race to go extinct and the Earth to become inhospitable. What about any other situation where someone
was brutally murdered. If you just open a history book and flip to
any page, or turn on the news you pretty much can’t avoid reading about horrific atrocities
committed between humans. This curse would be an extinction level threat
that humans would be battling everywhere, all the time. We start out following a disturbed looking
man. I know Monday mornings can be hard, but come
on. I’m guessing he visited the home, started
getting haunted by the onryo, and thought, fuck it i’m going out on my terms. I get it. But your apartment wasn’t that high up. Suicide by falling isn’t something you want
to mess up. According to a book called Trauma Anesthesia,
50% of people will die from a 4 story fall, and 90% from a 7 story fall. We later see that his apartment was on the
6th floor. So about 80% chance he dies. Might as well take the elevator up to the
roof to guarantee you go out instantly. Yoko, the expendable caretaker, is helping
an elderly lady named Emma. During her cleaning routine, she hears some
creaking of the wood floors in the adjacent room. Of course she decides to check it out, only
to find nobody there. Houses do make random noises though. My parents' house has air currents that would
pull the basement door shut on it’s own. At least I'm pretty sure it was air currents. I never took any chances, as soon as I turned
the basement lights off, I'd animal crawl up the stairs as fast as possible before shutting
and locking the door. One creaking sound, ok, but 3 distinct sounds
that are directionally baiting you into a trap. Yoko is like a little kid following the onryo’s
jelly bean trail. It’s not as obvious that Yoko was in danger as much as the first girl in the Polaroid
movie, but still. Checking out the attic is gonna be a hard
no for me. She turns her back to the open entrance that
the weird sound was coming from, because that’s smart, then hops in to check the attic out. If I experienced what she did, I'd have left
the building, and then gotten some backup to go check it out later. Not too long ago, a homeless man was found
living in a couple’s attic. I’m not going to be confronting a potential
situation like that alone. Yah, Yoko really didn’t stand a chance,
considering she was one of the first to encounter the onryo and the old lady is mute and can’t
scribble a picture to show Yoko she was in danger. Our main protagonist, Karen gets to work and
finds out she’s filling in for Yoko, who didn’t show up for work this morning or
answer her phone. Like Alex said, she’s probably just sick. Karen reaches the elderly woman’s house
and finds her writhing on the bedroom floor. Yah thanks Alex, handling 160 pounds of this
dead weight is easy to do alone. I’d think it was kind of odd that both floors
of the house were trashed, but the only occupant is diagnosed with severe lethargy, couldn’t
get out of her own bed, and probably had pissed herself. Karen starts getting baited by the onryo fairly
quickly. And makes the same mistake of following the
metaphorical evil jelly bean trail into the onryo’s tender unloving embrace. Seriously, they’re a very touchy feely spirit. I’d rather get my head whacked off by Jason
Voorhees. The closet is strangely taped up. The onryo tricks Karen into coming over to
the closet to help the cat. Well, she found the cat, and a little boy. Karen calls her manager, Alex, to see what
she should do. Seems like a good time to call the cops too. Karen managed to snag the piss-stained book
from the random creepy kid. Priorities. It seems to be a diary of some sort, and contains
a picture of the jumper. She continues wandering around the house with
a little boy still upstairs by himself. Screw Emma, I’d be out of there. Amidst all the trash, she finds a ripped up
picture containing the image of the little boy, his cat, and his parents. Seriously, call the cops, figure out who or
where the parents are. Karen figures out the boy’s name is Toshio. The phone rings, it's Susan, Matthew’s sister. She’s checking in to make sure Emma is okay. It is Emma’s room, so Karen probably thought
it was just her. Behind the door she hears Emma murmuring to
something. Karen opens the door and asks Emma who she
was talking to. Surprisingly, Emma finally talks, saying that
‘they’ won’t leave her alone. Karen ignores her and tells her to just get
some rest. Karen, she was diagnosed with lethargy and
dementia. There’s obviously something not right here
with the child, Yoko missing, the picture, etc. Emma isn’t psychotic or hallucinatory, it’s
not like she has a preexisting condition that would cause her to say things like this. Maybe ask who she's referring to at least. The evil onryo spirit confronts Karen, but
it’s not clear if she’s dead yet. We flashback to the family and Emma originally
buying the house a few days prior. Emma seems to know something isn’t right. While the family checks out the house, the
real estate agent hears some dripping sounds coming from the bathroom. He heads in to check it out, and sees the
tub is filled with dark disgusting water. The dripping sounds sounded less like a faucet
dripping, and more like someone splashing the water around. Odd.. Since he’s trying to sell the house, he
tries to quickly unclog the drain before the family comes downstairs to check it out. This movie has successfully made me paranoid
of attics and dark water filled bathtubs. I wonder if he’ll mention that to the family. Nope. This house would be considered a jiko bukken,
which is a property where the previous occupants died of unnatural causes, like murder. In Japanese law, the real estate agent is
required to inform the buyers of prior incidents. It wouldn’t really matter though, because
nobody would survive long enough to make it to court. I also like how they didn’t give a shit
about Emma’s opinion of the house, considering she was visibly disturbed by the place. What the fuck Toshio. You were supposedly murdered so brutally that
a curse was created with your vengeful spirit to terrorize and bring death to whoever is
unlucky enough to walk in that front door. But you’re running around knocking over
my ramen and eating my Ritz Bitz. I think your dad should have held your head
underwater a little longer. Jennifer initially blames it on Emma, but
sees footprints leading into another room. I’m just trying to imagine seeing footprints
in my house, following them, and running into a cat and little kid. It’s a little kid, but I ain’t dealing
with that. Same procedure as Yoko and Karen, leave, call
cops, wait for Kayako to come kill you anyways. Jennifer heads upstairs to check it out by
herself. Jennifer’s giving the chick from Polaroid
a run for her money in how stupid you can be, and succumbs to a similar fate. Matthew comes home to find Jen missing and
the house completely trashed. I’d think someone broke into my home. Same procedure as Yoko, Karen, and Jen. Leave, call cops and Jen, wait for Kayako
to come kill you anyways. Emma is completely shell-shocked, probably
from hearing her daughter-in-law get ravaged by evil spirits upstairs. Matthew finds Jennifer in bed, also shell
shocked. She starts croaking and just as Matthew's
about to call an ambulance the onryo attack. Clearly they are being attacked by something
supernatural, and nobody so far has had a solid opportunity to fight back. Matthew and Jen are presumably dead. Back from the flashback, Alex shows up to
help Karen. Wow these houses are less secure than a Motel
8. He finds Emma lying wide awake, oh she’s
dead. To be fair, it’s kind of hard to tell. I don’t think Emma was diagnosed correctly. She was clearly suffering from severe PTSD. Which they just chalked up to mild dementia
and lethargy. Instead of proper therapy and figuring out
what happened to her, they just gave her a cleaning lady. Alex finds a very PTSD stricken Karen curled
up in the corner. I guess the evil spirits haven’t finished
toying with her. Finally someone decided to call the cops. Alex and the detectives have a disheartening
chat. He tells them Yoko’s missing, and they tell
him Emma’s family has been missing as well. The detectives then take up the important
task of finding and returning the phone to the charging dock. The detectives hop into the attic where nothing
good ever happens. At least the evil spirits, in their vengeful
rampage, decided to place their victim’s corpses in loving embrace, how sweet. They also find Yoko’s jaw. Doug mentions to Karen that the cops ruled
Emma's death as from natural causes. How did the cops rule that, considering there
are 2 corpses and a ripped out jaw in the attic, a missing caretaker and former owner
of said jaw, and a PTSD stricken caretaker. Yah, I’m sure Emma's death was completely
unrelated. I know Karen's pretty shocked, but I think
if I was her I'd be trying to find out who that kid was, what happened to his family
in the picture, but more importantly, find a Buddhist Priest to take a look at my options. In the recap we’ll see if that could’ve
helped. Karen does have some off-hand knowledge of
Buddhist rituals that could help. What I'm gathering from this ritual is that
Karen needs to burn the haunted house down, and cremate their remains. But again, it’s probably wise to check with
the Buddhists first, considering they have much more knowledge on these things. We flash back to Susan, who’s working late
at the office. ‘Karoshi’, or death from overwork, is
an ongoing issue within Japan’s extreme work culture, so I don’t get how she’s
there alone. Well, Susan’s dead.. She makes it into the stairwell and takes
a big sigh of relief because obviously the creepy stalker thing couldn’t follow her
in there. Mathew calls her cell phone, but it doesn’t
sound like him. In case you’re wondering, Kayako’s croaking
was caused by her husband snapping her neck, which didn’t initially kill her. The croaking is her trying to breathe through
a broken windpipe. The stairwell lights start shutting off above
her, and she sees Kayako crawling up the stairs. Just as Susan makes it back out of the stairwell,
Kayako grabs her feather keychain, snapping it off. Susan makes a break for the security desk
and convinces the security guard to go check out the monster on the tenth floor. Sure, he gets paid enough to do that. She watches on the security camera as the
guard checks it out, all seems good until the onryo crawls out of the shadow. Not knowing that she was marked by the grudge
curse, she takes a taxi back to her apartment thinking she can escape. But the onryo has already caught up with Susan,
waiting for her at every floor but the one she steps off at. She makes it into her apartment, and the phone
rings, maybe it’s actually Matthew this time? That’s not Matthew. Not sure why it had to deceive her like that
in order to get her apt, it obviously has no problem tracking and following her. Through the eye peep it looks like Matthew
is there, but when she opens the door the hallways empty. Susan runs back inside and jumps under the
covers. The nightmare fuel continues as she finds
the feather keychain that the onryo stole in her bed. She basically only has enough time to register
that she has seconds before a corpse ghost consumes her soul. Susan really didn’t stand a chance. Flash forward and Karen’s surprisingly still
alive. The detective seems to think that Matthew
killed Jennifer, drug her into the attic and into his embrace, then killed himself, while
Emma simultaneously died in her sleep. I feel like a competent forensics analyst
would refute this narrative really quickly. Oh and Susan also disappeared at around the
same time, but I'm sure she killed herself too. Just another run of the mill coordinated familial
mass suicide. And the little boy that Karen said she saw,
that died 3 years ago in that house, definitely just a figment of her imagination. I think this detective needs to go get an
onion bagel with cream cheese for Agent Smecker. His subordinate puts it together, that they
were the first family to live in that house since the murder 3 years ago, implying the
curse. Karen overhears that all the previous tenants
died within days of entering the house, and they weren’t all killed in the house. She realizes she has very little time, and
there’s nowhere that’s safe. Instead of visiting a Buddhist temple for
expert help, Karen goes to see her waiter boyfriend. He tries to get her to open up, and she tells
him that she thinks she saw something, that she isn’t sure, but something else was there
with them. Yah, the ghost got right in your face, what’re
you confused about. I remember this scene when I was a kid, it
legitimately made me afraid of car window reflections. It’s very important to stay fresh and clean
while being tormented and hunted down by murderous evil spirits. Back at the care center, the creepy little
kid sic’s the disfigured Yoko on Alex. Do you really need to touch the blood to know
it’s blood? And please. Dont, walk, up, to, her. For the love of god. Poor Alex, like the others, he just couldn’t
know what hit him. Karen’s doing her own detective work on
the Saeki family. The little boy she saw was actually dead,
and the ghost she saw was probably the deceased mother. Both were murdered by the father, who later
hung himself according to the article. Peter’s suicide was also written about in
an article on the same page. It’s not clear why he killed himself or
if there was any connection to the Saeki family. The detective is checking out the security
tapes from Susan’s building. The onryo comes out of the shadow like before
and shuffles up to the camera. It’s at this moment that he realized he
fucked up. Karen is following the Peter lead. I’m not sure why, as far as Karen knows,
it didn’t seem like there was a solid connection between the house and him. Kayako managed to photobomb every single one
of Peter’s photos, and this was before she was a ghost. Impressive stalking skills. We flashback to pre-suicide Peter. He’s got a secret admirer from some girl
he doesn’t know. Uh oh, it’s Kayako. Looks like the father already did the damage,
and the house is cursed. Peter innocently tries to help Toshio, but
Toshio has other plans. I wonder if Kayako was going to kill him before
he committed suicide, considering she got killed because she was madly in love with
him. Karen confronts the detective about what he
knows of the house. The detective reveals that 2 of his colleagues
died mysteriously, and one disappeared. All were investigating the murders that occured
in that house. Knowing that they’ve both been in that house,
they know they’re marked for death, along with all the police that entered the home. Since the detective has knowledge of the onryo
and Ju-On curse, you’d think he would try to enlist the help of the Buddhists as well. Instead, he admits defeat. Well, almost. Burning the house down is a pretty reasonable
conclusion given their limited knowledge of the curse. It’s not clear if it’ll work. If it does, this should become standard police
procedure from now on. I’d throw a molotov cocktail from the outside. Inside and alone is too risky. This would be a mistake. Come on, you know it’s the ghost of the
murdered boy. That was just stupid. It looked like it was the father drowning
him. Either that was a form that Kayako took, or
Takeo became an onryo when Kayako’s spirit hung him. Karen returns home, and it seems Doug left
a message for her, telling her that Alex and Yoko were found dead, and that he was going
to come find her at the Saeki house. Doug! Why would Karen go back to that house? Just don’t go inside the crime scene at
least. Karen, hearing Doug’s intentions, chases
after him to stop him. It’s too late though, Doug has already doomed
himself. Instead of finding Doug, Karen finds Peter. Apparently evil spirits sometimes like to
take you down memory lane before murdering you. The onryo show’s Karen Kayako’s deadly
infatuation with Peter. It was a love affair that led to the dad murdering
them and the kitty in rage. Thanks Kayako, but I really don’t think
Karen gives a shit about your family drama, and it’s not like this is actionable intel
considering you’re going to kill her in a few minutes. Karen’s hallucination of Peter continues,
and Peter’s curiosity of the fly infested closet with bloody handprints on it gets the
best of him. Peter nopes out of the house, barely able
to walk with what he just witnessed. Karen’s got nerves of steel, because she
sticks around to check out the thumping noise in the other room. Is there a room in this house that isn’t
filled with horrifying shit. Kayako continues showing her Netflix documentary
about her murder to provide backstory to Karen for literally no reason. It's not looking good for doug. He’s still alive, but the situation is getting
pretty dire. Kayako makes out with Doug with her sexy raspy
voice, then crawls over to Karen. Karen tries to escape through the front door,
but this onryo bitch is everywhere. In a hail mary, Karen grabs Doug's cigarette
lighter as he's croaking back to life. It seems Kayako forgot one thing, Karen’s
boyfriend’s a smoker. The place burns down as Kayako crawls on top
of Karen. Karen survives the fire, meaning the house
survived, meaning Kayako survived, meaning Karen’s. The detectives corroborate this by telling
us the firefighters put out the fire saving the house and Karen. Nobody talks about the poor firefighter who
put the fire out and drug Karen out of the house who doomed himself and Karen. She visits Doug’s body, and I bet you can’t
guess the dramatic twist ending. The movie ends. Let’s recap who we could’ve saved, and
whose death was inevitable. I’m gonna start with some good ole victim
blaming. Kayako shouldn’t have kept a diary detailing
her love affair when she damn well knows her husband is a jealous psycho. But she got caught and was murdered for it,
along with Toshio and the cat. Peter naively sought out his secret admirer,
and tried to help an injured boy but instead cursed himself with death. Nothing he could have done. Matthew, Jennifer, Susan, and Emma all were
killed for trying to buy a house. Since the events unfolded fairly quickly,
and Yoko was sent in to help Emma at around the same time the family was being mysteriously
murdered, she didn’t stand a chance either. When Karen was face to face with the onryo,
it was clear she was in danger from an evil spirit. With her knowledge of Japanese mythology,
it would’ve been reasonable to enlist the help of a Buddhist Priest. According to Wikipedia, I mean Japanese mythology,
there might be some ways to exorcise the onryo: The easiest way is to help it fulfill its
purpose. Traditionally by enacting revenge upon the
onryo’s slayer. Since Kayako already took revenge on her slayer,
Takeo, this method didn’t work. Give the onryo’s remains a proper burial
with all rites performed. The timing is going to be tight, but it might
work. Allow the ghost to consummate its passion
with its intended lover. Peter just had to fuck Kayako’s evil spirit. Might be hard to get it up given her corpsey
appearance, but that’s just a grenade he needs to jump on. I hope he likes croakers. The emotions of the onryō are particularly
strong, so they are the least likely to be pacified by these methods. The onryo can be repelled by placing holy
Shinto writings on the onryo’s forehead to banish the spirit, which seems tricky to
accomplish. They can also be attached to a house's entry
ways to prevent the onryo from entering. Karen and the other cursed victims could do
this to buy themselves time to figure out a way to exorcise the onryo and break the
grudge curse against them. Burn the house down completely. Karen and the detective attempted this, but
both failed. It makes sense that burning the house and
their remains would remove any tether the onryo had to the physical world. With a number of options, Karen may have been
able to break the curse, saving her, Doug, the Detective, Alex, the Firefighters, and
the Cops. If all that fails, well, everyone’s dead. I don’t think we can really say we beat
the onryo, as none of these options are really proven to work even if we survived long enough
to try them. I’d say the Ju-On curse and the onryo were
unbeaten. Thanks for watching, and, well, no final momento
will save your life. You probably won’t know what hit you when
an onryo follows you home. Sweet dreams.
